Schaub's struggles bring Texans to rock bottom in 49ers'...

1of 3Sunday night's game starts in nightmarish fashion for the Texans as a Matt Schaub pass intended for Andre Johnson, left, is picked off by the 49ers' Tramaine Brock, center, and returned 18 yards for a touchdown. It was the fourth pick-six thrown by Schaub in as many games.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, Staff Photographer

2of 3Sunday night's game starts in nightmarish fashion for the Texans as a Matt Schaub pass intended for Andre Johnson, left, is picked off by the 49ers' Tramaine Brock, center, and returned 18 yards for a touchdown. It was the fourth pick-six thrown by Schaub in as many games.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, Staff Photographer

3of 3Sunday night's game starts in nightmarish fashion for the Texans as a Matt Schaub pass intended for Andre Johnson, left, is picked off by the 49ers' Tramaine Brock, center, and returned 18 yards for a touchdown. It was the fourth pick-six thrown by Schaub in as many games.Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, Staff Photographer

SAN FRANCISCO - The last time Matt Schaub threw three interceptions in a game, Hurricane Ike had just ravaged Houston. If Texans coach Gary Kubiak hadn't benched Schaub and inserted T.J. Yates in the fourth quarter Sunday night, similar carnage might have resulted - at least in neighborhoods adjacent to sports bars.

Schaub may have reached his nadir in the Texans' humiliating 34-3 loss to San Francisco, but even the ever-loyal Kubiak concluded a change under center was necessary, at least for this one evening. Schaub was seemingly a beaten man - and probably long before Tarell Brown happily cradled the Niners' third pick of what became a hopelessly long evening for the visitors.

Afterward, Kubiak answered, point blank, that Schaub is still his starting quarterback.

To quote him: "Yes, he is." (Fortunately, he didn't say that live on "SportsCenter" with Houston's taverns still teeming with angry folks.)

Kubiak said he still has faith in the man who has guided the team's fortunes since 2007 and that it is up to him as a coach to get Schaub's mind right again - before everybody inside and out of the organization goes batty.

Hard times for QB

"I'm trying to help a quarterback get through a very difficult time," Kubiak said. "I'm trying to help a guy I believe a great deal in. I've been doing this a long time and had some good ones, and I've seen guys go through these hard times."

That's nine interceptions on the season now for Schaub. Only the Giants' Eli Manning, with 12, has more, and Manning can at least claim two Super Bowl victories on his résumé. Worse, Schaub left his mark on history here in the final season for Candlestick Park.

His first interception, by Tramaine Brock, went 18 yards the wrong way for San Francisco's first touchdown of the rout, making the woebegone Texan the first quarterback in NFL history - like all the way back to leather helmets and the Roaring Twenties - to suffer a pick-six in four consecutive games.

Previously, Seattle's Richard Sherman, Baltimore's Daryl Smith and Tennessee's Alterraun Verner had humbled him thusly. Although the Texans survived Verner's thievery with a narrow overtime escape, they've gone 0-3 since with Schaub bearing an increasingly conspicuous share of the blame, which is the nature of the quarterback's job.

Fans were already burning his jersey last week. By next Sunday, when the St. Louis Rams visit, there may be none left in circulation.

Kubiak admitted the game's dreary script was "a broken record," although he didn't mean that others besides Schaub weren't stumbling and bumbling about, too. He also stated the obvious in saying, "There's no way you can win in this league turning the ball over like we are. We're seeing the same thing."

'At rock bottom'

Schaub, subdued by even his own taciturn standards, later spoke of "the snowball effect" and, when asked if he could explain what was happening to him and his team, conceded, "Not really, not at this moment. We hurt ourselves. We couldn't get things going. When we did, then we stopped ourselves."

Like the previous three pick-sixes, Brock "jumped the route," Schaub said. "The corner made a great play."

Kubiak agreed. But he also said Schaub "needs to see" some of things he's not seeing.

Told that Kubiak believes the Texans are "at rock bottom," Schaub replied, "Absolutely. We need to get better and get better fast, myself included."

Schaub's last three-pick debacle happened on Sept. 21, 2008, in that season's second game. The Texans had been forced to take an early open date the previous Sunday because of the Ike-related chaos and were out of sorts when they got pummeled by the Titans 31-12. Schaub's rating that day, just 14 starts into his Texans tenure, was a career-low 27.8.

He didn't miss "topping" that by much here, finishing with a 32.2.

Left tackle Duane Brown predictably came to Schaub's defense and tried to deflect blame onto everyone else, himself included.

"I don't think he's ever been in as tough a spot in his career," Brown said. "But we've got to continue to believe in him. We've got to stay behind him. Me and him, we've been in a lot of battles together. I have faith in him. I trust his ability. I've got to keep reminding him on that, and keep people off him in the pocket."

Critics growing louder

Schaub was asked how he was going to block out the shrill dissonance coming from those who don't share the opinions of Brown and Kubiak.

There wasn't much he could say on that - it's out of his hands - but he did offer a solution.

"This is a hard business we choose to be in," Schaub said. "You go through too much as a team, working early and staying late, to have it come to this. We need everybody to come together and get it right, get the ship back on track."

Dale Robertson is the longest-tenured sports writer at a major daily newspaper in Texas, having spent 18 years with the Houston Post (1972-90) before joining the Houston Chronicle in the fall of 1990. His primary sports duties include covering the Texans, the Houston Marathon, the Shell Houston Open PGA tournament and the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship, a stop on the ATP World Tour. He’s also the Chronicle’s wine columnist while writing occasionally about health issues and travel destinations.

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